


My drunk heart remembers what I want to forget

by Heath17_KO5



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Angst, Background Preath - Freeform, F/F, Happy Ending, Post-Break Up, Reconciliation, in which so'hara are dumbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 17:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21673564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heath17_KO5/pseuds/Heath17_KO5
Summary: "If she had been sober, Emily might have stopped to think about how this was a bad idea. If she had been sober, she might have considered the implication of still being able to dial her number from memory on the bar’s phone after she dropped hers and the screen shattered. If she had been sober, she might have been able to think of a single other person to call.Emily Sonnett was not sober. She was the furthest thing from sober.Odds were she wouldn’t even remember this come morning.".a.k.a. Sonny calls her ex, Kelley, when she is really drunk at a bar after months without contact
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 12
Kudos: 213





	My drunk heart remembers what I want to forget

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbetad, so all mistakes are mine. It also got a little out of control lengthwise. If you like it, please leave me a comment letting me know what you liked. Comments fuel the writing process. Enjoy!

If she had been sober, Emily might have stopped to think about how this was a bad idea. If she had been sober, she might have considered the implication of still being able to dial her number from memory on the bar’s phone after she dropped hers and the screen shattered. If she had been sober, she might have been able to think of a single other person to call. 

Emily Sonnett was not sober. She was the furthest thing from sober. 

Odds were she wouldn’t even remember this come morning. 

.

_ *Beep* _

_ “Hey. It’s me. Me Sonny. Me Emily. Emily Sonnett. You probably...Maybe you know that. Hey what time is it? It’s probably late. Mal said it was late when she left and that was maybe a while ago. She was my ride, though. Now I’m...Did you know that I still know your number? Like my fingers knew how to type it? That’s...weird...huh? I wonder how I’m gonna get home. Hey, so you’re probably wondering why I called. That...is a good question. Why did I call? I don’t know. I just...I haven’t heard your voice in a while and...Oh, they said I have to go outside to wait. But I don’t know what I’m waiting for. I didn’t call a cab. Okay, well, I guess I have to go. I miss you. Shit. No. I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. I’m -” _

Kelley played the message again and sighed heavily. God damn Emily Sonnett. 

She looked up the number. Not because she planned to do anything about the dumbass calling her at 2 a.m. Emily Sonnett was not her problem anymore. She was just curious. 

A bar. Of course it was a bar. A bar a good forty minutes drive from where Kelley was. 

Way too far away to even consider going to get her. Even if she wanted to, which she very definitely didn’t. 

Besides, she’d probably called a cab by now. 

Kelley put her phone down on her bedside table and rolled over. A minute later she rolled back and turned her phone to ‘do not disturb’ like she should have done in the first place before bed. She put her phone down with a solid-sounding *thunk* and rolled away again. 

Ten minutes later she sat up and swore. “Dammit, Em.”

It had been months since the nickname had fallen from her lips and it felt weird now, foreign in a way it didn’t used to. She ignored the thought, instead holding on to her annoyance. She let it fester and grow as she pulled on some jeans and a hoody, tugged on some socks, laced up her sneakers, and grabbed her keys out of the bowl on the table in her entryway. She felt it bubbling just beneath the surface as she started her car and set navigation to the stupid fucking bar where her stupid fucking ex-girlfriend had called her from. 

“Such a goddamn asshole,” she muttered to herself as she headed for the highway. 

.

Emily was sitting on the curb. She was...well it was almost sitting. It was leaning with attitude. Probably. Maybe. 

She wasn’t sure why the streetlights kept moving though. 

She was pretty sure she’d called someone. She was waiting for a ride. She was almost positive. That was what she’d told the cute girl with the dreads and the nose ring. It seemed to be taking a really long time for the ride to get there though. 

She took another swig of the bottle of water Miss Dreadlocks had left her, and barely caught herself as she nearly toppled backwards in the process. 

It was possible, maybe, a little, that the shots had been a bad idea. Maybe not the first one. She would have handled two just fine. That sixth one, though...that maybe hadn’t been her best idea. It had been free though. 

Emily picked up her phone and tried to look at the screen, but it was shattered. A vague memory of it being dropped surfaced. 

“Right. Shit.”

She looked down the road as she heard the roar of an engine. Mal. She must have called Mal. Mal was supposed to be her ride anyway. 

The headlights felt far too bright as they approached and Emily shielded her eyes against them. It was only once the car stopped and the engine was killed that Emily had the hint of a thought that it was not, in fact, Mal’s car. 

She blinked hard a few times as a familiar figure stepped out of the driver’s side door and stomped towards her, arms crossed. 

“Oh that’s right,” she mumbled, remembering the phone call - kind of, anyway. 

Emily looked up into Kelley’s face, eyebrows furrowed, hazel eyes glaring, lips pursed, and had two simultaneous thoughts. “Oh shootiful,” she muttered, and then a very pressing need struck her. 

She stumbled to her feet and away from Kelley and managed to lean against the building before she threw up. She was pretty sure she at least missed her shoes. 

“What the fuck, Sonny?”

.

Kelley was not amused. It was one thing when she knew Sonny was drunk. It was something else entirely when she knew she was puking outside the bar drunk. She should have just called Mal. Why didn’t she just call Mal? Then Sonny could have been her problem. Then it could have been her car’s interior that was facing destruction. 

Kelley sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was here now and obviously Sonny was in no state to be left alone. 

Dammit. 

She waited for Sonny to pull herself together a little. She saw the water bottle on the sidewalk and held it outstretched as Sonny staggered back towards her. 

Sonny took it, took a swig, swished it around in her mouth, and spit it out on the sidewalk. “Thanks.”

Kelley turned away and made a face. “Delightful,” she muttered.

Sonny took a few big gulps, and then Kelley caught her starting to sway out of the corner of her eye. She moved quickly, wrapping an arm under her shoulders to support her. 

The contact burned and not just because Sonny seemed to be radiating heat in her drunken mess of a state. It had been months since they’d touched and now here Kelley was using her body to prop up Sonny’s. 

“You’re so strong,” Sonny slurred, looking at her with something resembling admiration. 

Whatever the moment might have had was lost because of the puke on Sonny’s breath, however. “And you need a mint,” Kelley informed her. 

“You were always so strong, Kel.”

The name fell from her lips so easily, like she’d never stopped saying it, but it was enough to stop Kelley in her tracks. The familiarity of it dredged up memories she’d worked to bury, of times it was said under different circumstances. 

Sonny leaned more heavily against her and Kelley focussed instead on her annoyance. “Come on, drunkie.”

She helped her to her car, then leaned her against it so that she could open the passenger door for her. She helped her up and eased her into the car, careful to guard her head as Sonny flopped into the seat. 

Then she grabbed the car trash can she always carried and stuck it in Sonny’s lap. 

“Do NOT puke on my interior,” Kelley warned. 

“No puke. You got it.” Sonny gave her two thumbs up and a cheesy grin and Kelley fought the urge to smile. 

Sonny was a nuisance at best right now. Of all the things that could have happened tonight, drunk calls from her ex-girlfriend who she hadn’t even talked to in months would not have ranked anywhere on her radar. 

She didn’t want to think about how stupid the breakup had been. The truth of the matter was that they were just too similar to work. That was really what it came down to, she’d decided right before she’d done her best to push all thoughts of Emily Sonnett from her mind. They were too similar and their tempers soared in the same way and they both let stubborness rule their hearts and their minds, and so little fights had become big fights, stupid arguments had become relationship ending ones, and nobody had been willing, in the end, to reach out or apologize. 

Until tonight when Sonny had called. 

Drunk.

At 2 a.m.

“What the fuck, Sonny?” Kelley repeated as she got into the driver’s seat. “What are you even doing here?”

Sonny frowned. “Waiting for a ride,” she replied a moment later as if she’d had to work out what the actual answer was.

“So you did call for a cab or an Uber or something?” Kelley asked, feeling even more annoyed that she’d bothered to make the trip now. 

Sonny shook her head, then leaned it back against the headrest quickly, like she regretted the movement. 

“So what ride were you waiting for?” Kelley demanded. 

Sonny looked at her, opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again, then shrugged. “I thought I called one, but then I remembered I didn’t. I called you.”

She’d called her. She’d called her and she’d left a rambling message and she’d said she missed her. She’d said she missed her and somehow that had made Kelley get in her car at stupid o’clock in the morning and drive 40 minutes to come get her drunk ass. 

Kelley groaned and started the car. She wasn’t sure who she was more annoyed at, Sonny or herself. 

.

Emily tried to make it all the way home. She really, truly did, but the shots in her stomach had other plans. She felt a little proud that she’d managed to give Kelley enough of a warning that she was able to pull over first. 

She had followed instructions. No puke on the interior. 

She would really like it if she stopped puking in general though. That would be good. She was not a fan. 

“You’re a mess,” Kelley accused when she was back in the car and a little cleaned up. 

Emily wanted to argue, but in the moment she couldn’t think of an argument that held any weight, so she just nodded instead. “Shots,” she explained. 

Kelley shook her head and pulled back onto the road. “Why’d you call me?” she asked what felt like a long time later. 

Emily opened her eyes, not realizing that she’d shut them in the first place, and looked at Kelley. There was something in her voice, a shift, but Emily couldn’t place it. Her thoughts were too foggy. They kept zigging when they should be zagging. She couldn’t make them work right. “Knew your number.”

“And you don’t know anyone else’s number? Mal’s? Emma’s??”

Emily frowned. She knew Emma’s. That one she knew. “Didn’t think of Emma.”

“You didn’t think of your twin???” Kelley demanded incredulously. 

Well, it sounded stupid when Kelley put it that way. 

“Thought of you,” Emily mumbled. 

Kelley didn’t reply. 

Emily closed her eyes again and felt herself start to drift off. It was okay. She’d be home soon and then Kelley could go back to her life and they would probably go back to not talking, to pretending like the other didn’t exist. 

Just before she fell asleep she thought maybe she heard a muttered, “Idiot,” but it was weird because it sounded almost affectionate, and that couldn’t be right. 

.

She couldn’t leave her. Kelley knew that. Not with her having thrown up more than once. Kelley was relatively sure that Sonny wasn’t “needs to go to the hospital” drunk, but she was definitely on the “don’t leave her alone” side of drunk. 

Besides, she didn’t want to deal with trying to have Sonny locate her keys right now. She’d probably topple over. 

Which really left one option. 

Kelley wasn’t super keen on it, but it wasn’t like it would be the first time ever that Sonny had slept at her place. 

She woke Sonny more gently than she deserved and helped her out of the car, half carrying her up the stairs and into her apartment. 

She eased Sonny into a chair in the living room, got her a tall glass of water, and set about making up the couch into a bed for her. 

She was almost done when Sonny said, “This isn’t my place.”

Kelley closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned to Sonny. “Great observational skills there, drunkie.”

“But you were supposed to take me home.”

“Is anyone at home?”

Sonny frowned. “Me. But not me because I’m here.”

Kelley gave her a pointed look. “Exactly. You are too drunk to be alone, Sonny.”

“But you don’t want me here.”

Well maybe she wasn’t THAT drunk after all. 

“It’s just for the night,” Kelley replied. She finished making up the couch and went to the kitchen to grab a large mixing bowl and set it on the floor beside the couch. “In case you can’t make it to the bathroom,” she explained. 

Sonny nodded. 

“But why am I here?”

“Existential questions are a little heavy for four in the morning, Son. Get some sleep,” Kelley replied, dodging the question and taking Sonny’s glass to refill. 

Sonny had made it to the couch by the time Kelley got back, and was staring down at her shoes with a frown. 

Kelley set down the water, sighed heavily, and took a seat next to Sonny. “Foot,” she instructed. 

Sonny lifted one towards her, and Kelley pulled off the sneaker, setting it neatly next to the couch. 

“Other foot,” she demanded. Sonny obliged and Kelley repeated the process with her other sneaker. “Jeans on or off?” Kelley asked, hoping for ‘on’, but knowing how uncomfortable Sonny found it to sleep in them. 

“Off,” Sonny mumbled sleepily. 

“Lie down.” Sonny did and Kelley helped her get the jeans off, shoving away the memories that threatened to spill into her consciousness as she did so of times when they hadn’t stopped at the jeans when undressing. 

“Drink more water. Sleep.” With that Kelley made her way to her room and shut the door. She kicked off her own shoes, stepped out of her jeans, tugged off her sweatshirt, and flopped down onto her bed. She curled up under the blankets and did her best to empty her mind.

She wished she could say that sleep came easily, but knowing that Sonny, after months without contact, was now only a few feet away, kept her mind whirring with unbidden thoughts.

The sun was peeking over the horizon before unconsciousness finally took her. 

.

Emily woke to a piece of toast, a fresh glass of water, some ibuprofen, and a whole lot of pain. 

“I’m never drinking again,” she grumbled to herself as she sat up and eyed the toast. And then she took in the rest of the room. The room that was not, in fact, her room. The room that was Kelley’s living room, as it turned out. 

Kelley. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

She’d called Kelley. She’d called Kelley and Kelley, for God knows what reason, had actually come and gotten her, and now she was at Kelley’s place. What had she said last night? Hopefully nothing too embarrassing. 

Hopefully nothing too revealing. 

Shit.

She was too hungover for this. 

Emily started with the water, taking large refreshing gulps that helped settle the slight queasiness she felt, then she tried out the toast. She needed to face Kelley at some point, probably, but for right now she didn’t appear to be around and it would be better to do so with a slightly clearer head. 

The toast went down okay, which meant that she felt brave enough to tackle the medicine, and then she lay back down on the couch and closed her eyes, willing the cottony feeling and the pain to ease up, trying not to think about where exactly she was and where exactly Kelley might be. Trying not to think about all the things she might have said last night and all the ways it was apt to blow up in her face. 

She must have dozed off again, because the next thing she knew, a full glass of water was being set down near her head with a heavy *clunk*. 

Her eyes fluttered open and she was met with serious hazel ones looking down at her. Familiar eyes. Eyes that made something besides nausea curl in her stomach. It hit her harder than she expected it to. 

“Morning,” Kelley said, her tone of voice implying that it was not a good one. 

“Hey,” Emily greeted, sitting up a bit more and reaching for the water. 

Kelley settled in a chair with a mug of coffee and looked at her expectantly, though what exactly she was expecting, Emily wasn’t sure. 

“Um, so, thanks. For getting me last night,” Emily mumbled, feeling her cheeks flushing with heat. She gulped at the water to soothe the heat and almost choked. 

“If I hadn’t, you’d probably be passed out in front of the bar,” Kelley pointed out. 

“Right. Thanks. And also, sorry,” Emily said. 

Kelley sipped at her coffee, and Emily got the distinct impression that more was expected. 

“Sorry I called you. Sorry for anything I said. I was pretty drunk. I don’t really remember, but knowing me I probably said something stupid, so sorry for whatever it was. Sorry I’m...here.”

Kelley eyed her over the top of her mug, then put it down into her lap and sighed. “It’s fine. Just...Call someone else next time.”

Emily nodded, then winced as a stab of pain shot through her head. 

“How’re you feeling?” Kelley asked. 

Emily looked at her, trying to determine if she was just being polite or if she actually cared. Her face was masked, though. Emily could see the guarded expression, the way she was carefully controlling how she was coming across. She knew her well enough to see that. She could still read her. 

“Not as bad as I did first thing,” Emily finally replied. “Thanks for the food and stuff.” 

Kelley nodded. “I can make you something else if you want.”

“No, you’ve already done more than enough. I’m not going to make you do that. Just give me a little bit and I’ll get out of your hair,” Emily said. 

Kelley opened her mouth, then closed it again. She nodded instead and resumed sipping at her coffee. 

“I didn’t...uh...I didn’t say anything really stupid last night, did I?” Emily asked, not really sure that she wanted the answer, but unable to leave the question unasked. 

Kelley looked at her for a long moment, and Emily could feel her cheeks heating up. She had. She knew it. She’d said something stupid like “I miss you” or “I still think about you all the time” or “I want you back”. 

Kelley shook her head. “Nothing stupider than usual.” 

The words stung, but only a little. Emily thought she could almost hear a hint of teasing in Kelley’s voice. 

“I can’t believe you actually came to get me,” she blurted. 

“That makes two of us,” Kelley replied. She was studying Emily with a carefully guarded expression and Emily squirmed on the couch. 

This was too much. Too much awkwardness. Too much familiarity. Too much complicated for how hungover she was. There were too many emotions battling inside her and she was too hungover to effectively push them all away. 

“Place looks the same,” she commented, the silence driving her mad. 

Kelley shrugged. “Got a new painting in the bathroom.”

“Oh. Cool,” Emily replied. She hadn’t noticed, but then again she’d been pretty drunk still when she’d gotten up to pee in the night. 

This was hard. She’d imagined seeing Kelley again, of course she had. She’d imagined things she might say and things she definitely wouldn’t. She’d imagined swallowing her pride and admitting her mistakes. She’d imagined pointing out how stupid everything had been. She’d imagined apologizing for her part in things. (She hadn’t let herself think about admitting her feelings.) She’d never reached out, though. She’d never made the first move. They’d parted mutually in a fit of anger. Why was it on her to reach out? 

Except, apparently she had, last night. 

God, this was so hard. 

“How is Mal? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

The “since we broke up” went unspoken, but not unheard, and Emily felt a little guilty. She knew that technically none of their friends had picked sides, but she knew that Mal, Lindsey, Sammy, and Rose had all stayed in better touch with her just like she hadn’t really heard from Allie or Alex since the break up. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t interact or be friendly when they had to, but they also weren’t about to start group chats with each other. 

“She’s good. She came out with me last night, actually. She wanted to head home earlier than me, though, so I said I’d get an Uber or something.” She could remember that part of the night well enough. 

“Yeah, I know,” Kelley informed her. “Except you didn’t get an Uber.”

“My phone broke.”

“Oh.”

“And I…”

“Remembered my number,” Kelley supplied. 

Apparently that had been covered last night. Emily felt stupid about it this morning. She felt the blush on her cheeks deepen. “Yeah. Guess so.”

“It must have taken you a while to get to me,” Emily commented after a moment’s thought. 

“About 40 minutes,” Kelley confirmed. 

Emily wanted to ask why. She wanted to know why Kelley had bothered. Why had she even listened to the drunk message she’d left? Why had she driven 40 minutes each way in the middle of the night? Why had she brought Emily to her place instead of dropping her off at home or with her family or somewhere else? She didn’t know if she wanted the answers, though. 

(She wanted to ask other whys, too. Why hadn’t Kelley ever called? Why had they let stupid arguments get so big? Why had they let it end where it had? She was pretty sure she knew the answers, though, without having to ask.)

“Sorry,” Emily said instead. 

“You already said that,” Kelley pointed out. 

“Thought it was worth saying again.”

Kelley wrinkled her nose and looked at her. “Didn’t think we did that.”

“What?” Emily asked, still feeling a bit foggy from the hangover. 

“Apologized,” Kelley replied. 

Emily studied her face, trying to figure out if that was an accusation or an admission, but Kelley gulped down what was left of her coffee and stood and headed to the kitchen before Emily could figure it out.

“I’ll make you some more toast,” Kelley called over her shoulder. 

Emily sat back. She needed to get out of there. She needed to remember that they didn’t work. It didn’t matter that she missed her because they didn’t work. Kelley wasn’t her girlfriend anymore. Kelley probably didn’t even count as a friend anymore. She was just a decent human being. She always had been. She’d come with Emily had called because she’d felt she had to. 

Emily wasn’t going to read into it. There was nothing there. She closed her eyes and took a long sip of water. 

She needed to go home soon. 

.

Kelley offered to drive her home. She didn’t know why. She’d definitely done more than anyone could have expected of her. She offered anyway. 

She told herself she wasn’t disappointed when Sonny turned her down and called an Uber. 

It didn’t matter. 

It wasn’t like one night where Sonny was drunk was going to change things between them. It didn’t mean anything that Sonny had called her. It didn’t mean anything that she’d woken up this morning trying to remember to be annoyed rather than actually being annoyed. 

(It didn’t mean anything that when she’d listened to Sonny’s voicemail for the fifth time the “I miss you” had hit just as hard as it had the first time.)

She walked her out. It seemed the polite thing to do. She would have done the same for any guest. 

“Sorry again,” Sonny said as the Uber pulled up. 

Kelley shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s...You should get your phone fixed.”

“Yeah,” Sonny agreed. 

What was the etiquette on saying goodbye to your ex who you used to be best friends with and now never talk to? Part of her wanted to go in for a hug. Part of her knew better. 

(She ignored the part that wanted a kiss.)

“I, uh, guess I’ll see you around,” Sonny said, standing with the door open to the car. 

Kelley could see the driver turning to watch, wanting to see what the hold up was. 

“Yeah. Probably. Once my ankle’s better.” It felt hollow. It felt inadequate. 

Sonny got in the car and hesitated. 

“If you- I mean you went out of your way, so if you need- Just- I don’t want to owe you, so whatever favor- I’m not saying this right.”

Kelley got it. Sonny felt indebted. Nothing else. She didn’t actually want to see Kelley again. She just felt like she needed to return the favor. “Yeah. Sure,” she said. “I’ll be sure to call and wake you up sometime at 2 a.m.”

Sonny smiled. It was a soft smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Kelley could always tell when her smiles reached her eyes. 

“Right. Well...Thanks.”

Kelley nodded. She wanted to reach out. She wanted to touch Sonny’s hand that still lingered on the car door. She wanted to pull her in for a hug. 

She stepped back and offered a small wave. “Bye.”

“Bye.” Sonny shut the door and looked through the window at her and Kelley wondered why in some ways this felt worse than when Sonny had stomped away from her place in Salt Lake City that night months ago. 

Like she had then, Kelley shoved her emotions away, and headed inside, not waiting to watch the car drive off with Sonny inside. 

.

“You were WHERE?” 

Emily shushed her sister, glancing around, happy to see that her parents were still in the kitchen. 

“At Kelley’s.”

“Kelley Kelley. Like your ex-girlfriend, Kelley. Like you’re both too stupid to talk to each other Kelley. Like you’re totally still in-”

Emma’s voice grew muffled as Emily slapped her hand over her mouth. Emma licked her, but she should have known that wouldn’t work. 

“Yes, Kelley,” Emily replied, keeping her hand firmly in place. “The one and only Kelley O’Hara. And I am not still...you know.” She removed her hand from Emma’s mouth. 

“I do know and you most definitely -”

“Emma!” Emily warned. 

Emma rolled her eyes. “Fine. Lie to yourself if you want.”

“It’s not lying. It’s...I don’t...She said I didn’t say anything stupid at least.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Emily elbowed her sister. 

“I’m just saying, it’s not really your MO.”

“Yeah, well, remember we share genes,” Emily pointed out. 

“Yes, but I got all the good ones.” 

Emily elbowed Emma again, a little harder. 

“Ow!” 

“It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re better off as friends.”

“Except you’re not.”

“We’re not better off as friends?” Emily asked. 

“No, you’re not friends. You don’t talk. You don’t interact. You pretend she doesn’t exist like 90% of the time and pine the rest of the time.”

“I don’t pine!”

“But you’re not arguing that you’re friends.”

Emily sighed. Her sister had a point. She didn’t like it, but she wasn’t wrong. “It’s easier this way.”

“Until you call her drunk off your ass at two in the morning because you remember her number before you think to call your twin sister who has literally known you since before you were born.”

“I feel like you’re trying to make a point here,” Emily commented. 

“Yeah? Ya think, huh?”

Emily stuck out her tongue and Emma did the same in return. 

“Emmy, I love you. I will always love you, but you are an idiot when it comes to Kelley. You always have been.”

“Gee thanks. So nice to have someone who will love and support me no matter what,” Emily commented dryly. 

“Emmy, that’s me. I AM that person, and part of loving and supporting you is knocking some sense into you when you need it,” Emma countered. 

“I don’t need it,” Emily argued. “Kelley’s...not part of my life anymore.”

“No? How’d that lie feel coming off your tongue?” Emma asked. 

Emily glared, but there was no lying to her sister. She’d learned that a long time ago. 

“It doesn’t matter. She didn’t really want me there and now I’ve left so now I’ll probably see her at games when we play Utah and that’s it. Whatever. This is how it is now.”

“Sure. Unless you text her. Unless one of you stops being fucking stubborn and calls the other and makes the first move,” Emma pointed out. 

“I did call her,” Emily argued. 

“Try it sober. See how it goes.” 

Emily sighed. She didn’t want this conversation. She didn’t want to think about Kelley and how Emma might be right. What did it matter? They didn’t work. At best she’d be salvaging a friendship and that was even assuming that Kelley wanted that to happen. Was it even worth the potential rejection to try?

.

Kelley didn’t want to think about the other night. She didn’t. Mostly she succeeded. 

But then the super dude bro guy slipped on the treadmill at the gym and she thought, “Sonny would laugh with me at that.” And then Starbucks barista spelled her name “Keeli” and she thought, “Sonny would think this is hilarious.” And then that stupid song that Sonny would always dance to was on when she went shopping. It felt like the universe wasn’t letting her forget, and each time she was reminded of Sonny she’d spiral. She’d replay the message in her head. She’d hear Sonny’s voice saying, “I miss you.” She’d think about how peaceful Sonny had looked asleep on her couch. She’d think of the way Sonny had sounded when she’d said Kelley didn’t want her there, like she was waiting for Kelley to disagree. 

She shook her head and told herself she wasn’t always left wondering the same question: why had Sonny called  _ her _ ? 

She pulled out her phone and texted Christen. 

** _[Kelley O’Hara 8:13 p.m.] _ ** _ I saw Sonny. _

** _[Turtle Press 8:15 p.m.]_ ** _ You okay? _

** _[Kelley O’Hara 8:16 p.m.]_ ** _ No.  _

Her phone rang a minute later. 

“When? Just now?” 

“Hello to you, too, Chris,” Kelley commented. 

“Kelley…”

“No. Last week.”

“You saw Sonny  _ last week _ and I’m just now finding out about it? Did you talk to Al?”

“Nah. Didn’t want to stress out Baby Janice.”

Kelley was rewarded by a light chuckle. “You know she’s not naming the baby Janice, right?” 

“Says you,” Kelley retorted. 

“Okay, well did you talk to Allie?”

“No. She’d have told Janice.”

“And you didn’t tell Tobin because she’d have told me. So you’ve been bottling it up for a week,” Christen concluded. 

“When you put it like that it sounds unhealthy,” Kelley replied, pouting just a little. 

“How does it feel?” Christen countered, not unkindly. 

Kelley sighed. “She called me drunk off her ass because she remembered my number and her phone was broken. I went and picked her up and she was too trashed to leave her alone so I took her to my place and let her sleep it off.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone and then a slow exhale. “Wow. That’s...wow.”

“And she said she missed me,” Kelley admitted. If she was talking to Chris to work through this, she may as well tell her everything. 

Christen and Tobin were in the unique position in this break up of actually staying relatively neutral. They’d managed to retain relationships with both of them. Tobin kind of had to. She’d been friends with Kelley since forever and she played with Sonny all the time. Christen had stayed neutral by extension, and because it wasn’t in her nature to shut people out. Maybe Christen knew more about how Sonny was doing, what she was feeling, what she might have really been thinking in that moment. 

There was a long, drawn out silence on the other end of the phone. “Did you tell her you miss her too?”

“No!” 

Christen sighed. “But you do.”

“I didn’t,” Kelley argued. “I was doing just fine until she called, and now-”

“You miss her,” Christen supplied. 

“No, now I’m all messed up.”

“Because you never dealt with your emotions about the break up in the first place,” Christen said.

“You sound like a therapist,” Kelley muttered. 

Christen laughed. “Kel, you told me ‘cause you want advice.”

“I told you because I need to stop thinking about her and I thought maybe if I told someone, I’d be able to do that.”

“How’s repression been working for you so far?” Christen asked. 

“Just fine until the last week, thank you,” Kelley replied. 

Christen laughed again. It wasn’t a mean laugh. Kelley felt herself getting defensive anyway. 

“She just got in my head again and I need her out. It’s not funny, Chris.” 

Christen sighed. “I’m not laughing at you, Kel. And she never really left. If she had, she wouldn’t be having this effect on you. I mean, you could have said you weren’t going to go get her when she called. You could have dropped her off at her parents’ house. You could’ve texted Emma about her. You went and got her and took her home and took care of her, Kel. What does that tell you?”

“That I’m a fucking idiot,” Kelley replied. 

“You’re not an idiot, Kel. You’re human. You miss her too. You went from being really close friends, to girlfriends, to nothing and you never took time to grieve the loss.”

“I don’t need to grieve. No one died.”

“That’s not the only thing grieving is good for,” Christen soothed. “Kelley...Look, I know you’re not going to like this suggestion, but have you considered  _ talking _ to her?”

“I did talk to her. When she was at my house. In my space. Being drunk and hungover and annoyingly attractive despite those things.”

“About feelings?”

“I don’t talk about feelings,” Kelley replied quickly. 

“And I think we’ve hit on the problem here, Kel.”

Kelley sighed. “You’re no help. I’m calling Erin.”

“She’s gonna tell you the same thing, Kel.”

“Whatever, Turtle.”

“I CAN HEAD A BALL NOW! I SCORED A WORLD CUP GOAL WITH MY HEAD!”

“You’re always gonna be my little freshman turtle,” Kelley countered, feeling a little better for the teasing. 

“Talk to Sonny, Kel. Text her. Call her. See her again. Sort it out or when your ankle is healed and you get called up again you’ll regret it.”

Kelley didn’t want to admit it, but Christen was right. “Maybe,” she muttered. “Tell Tobito I say what’s up.” 

“I will. And Kel?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right?” 

Kelley rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love you, too.”

She hung up. She looked at her phone. She  _ could _ call Erin. Christen was right, though. Erin was going to tell her the same thing. She needed someone who wasn’t in touch with their emotions to talk to. 

Which, of course, made her think of Sonny. 

“Dammit,” she muttered and tossed her phone across the couch. 

.

Emily had written about ten texts to Kelley in the last week. She hadn’t sent a single one of them. They all felt stupid. Besides, Kelley probably wouldn’t even respond. Plus, she was the one who’d reached out last time. Okay, maybe she was really drunk and didn’t actually remember doing so, but she knew she had. 

“Are you not texting Kelley again?” Lindsey demanded. “Is this what my entire visit is going to be like? You pining over Kelley and doing nothing about it? Because been there, done that.”

“Hey!” Emily snapped. “Uncool.”

“Uncool, maybe, but not untrue. Equally uncool, the way you keep fiddling with your new phone instead of actually talking to me, your friend, physically here in front of you.”

Emily sighed. Lindsey was right. She put her phone down upside down on the table so that she wouldn’t be tempted to keep glancing at the screen and took a sip of her coffee. “So how’s your love life?”

Lindsey let out a bark of laughter. “As nonexistent as yours. No prospects and I am NOT taking Russell back again. That ship has well and truly sailed.”

“Have you thought about, maybe, dating a girl?” Emily suggested. 

“Are you hitting on me, Dasani?” Lindsey teased. 

“Well, you ARE the second hottest girl at this table,” Emily replied with a sly grin. 

Lindsey threw a crumb from her scone at Emily. “You mean THE hottest.”

“Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Emily joked. 

“Jerk,” Lindsey accused, but there was a smile playing at her lips, too. “Anyway how’s that dating girls thing working out for you, huh?”

Emily’s smile faded. 

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Emily’s phone chimed and she snatched it up quickly, not caring who it was, just appreciative for the distraction. 

The name across her phone stopped her cold. 

** _[Badass Babe 9:49 a.m.]_ ** _ Hey. _

She should have changed the name in her phone when they broke up, but she’d just avoided the contact altogether. Her hands felt clammy as she read the one word text, and she felt her heart start to race. 

“Who is it?” Lindsey asked, leaning across the table to try to look, but Emily tilted her phone so she couldn’t see. 

“No one,” she lied. 

** _[Badass Babe 9:51 a.m.]_ ** _ You still hungover? _

It shouldn’t have made her smile, but it did. 

“No one sure wants your attention,” Lindsey commented. 

** _[Sassy Son-shine 9:52 a.m.]_ ** _ Sober since that 2nd piece of toast. _

“Earth to Sonnett,” Lindsey waved a hand in front of her phone to get her attention and looked at her expectantly when she put her phone down again. 

Emily contemplated her options. Lindsey wasn’t apt to let this go. “It was Kelley.”

Lindsey’s jaw dropped open, then she closed it again, shook her head, crossed her arms and said, “Of course it was.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emily demanded. 

“It means that you two were idiots to think you were done with each other in the first place,” Lindsey replied. 

“Why does everyone keep calling me an idiot about this?” 

“Maybe because we’re on to something,” Lindsey retorted. “Look, Son, I love you, but let’s not pretend like you haven’t been hung up on her since the break up. You haven’t so much as looked at another girl.”

“I’ve been busy. We finished up the season and then holiday prep and family and-”

“And getting drunk and calling your ex and secretly pining?” Lindsey interrupted. 

Emily glared. “Not so secretly, apparently,” she muttered. “It’s not pining. I’m not pining. I just-” Emily breathed out heavily. “She was an important part of my life for a long time. It’s hard to move on from that.”

“Even harder if you don’t want to move on,” Lindsey pointed out. 

Emily’s phone chimed again. 

** _[Badass Babe 10:03 a.m.]_ ** _ Well, I do make magic toast. _

Emily smiled despite herself. 

**_[Sassy Son-shine 10:04 a.m.]_** _You make better tacos._

“Are you flirting?” Lindsey asked, peering at her phone again. 

“No,” Emily replied quickly, locking her phone and putting it down. 

She shouldn’t have bothered because it chimed again a second later. 

** _[Badass Babe 10:05 a.m.]_ ** _ I do make amazing tacos.  _

“‘Cause you’re smiling like you’re flirting,” Lindsey argued. 

Emily put her phone down. She didn’t have a response. Well, she didn’t have a response that she should actually type out and send. Her brain had a few suggestions, though. Inappropriate ones. Things like “maybe you could make me some sometime” or “you have even more amazing fingers” or “it’s really good to hear from you.” 

“She was being stupid,” Emily replied. 

“What else is new?” Lindsey asked. 

“Hey!” Emily felt herself growing defensive on Kelley’s behalf. “She’s really smart.”

Lindsey looked at her for a long moment. “You both are. It’s just neither of you act like it, especially when it comes to emotions.”

_ *Ding* _

** _[Badass Babe 10:08 a.m.]_ ** _ I think maybe we should talk. _

Emily felt her heart beat even faster and a wave of nausea swept over her. She felt a bit like she’d been called to the principal’s office, which was stupid, she knew. Maybe Lindsey had a point. 

Lindsey rolled her eyes and snatched Emily’s phone. Emily lunged as Lindsey’s eyes scanned the messages, surprise registering on her face. 

“Well, maybe she’s learning,” Lindsey said handing back the phone. 

“It’s not nice to read people’s messages,” Emily grumbled. 

“True, but it’s not polite to text nonstop when you’re out for coffee with your best friend, either,” Lindsey pointed out. “You should tell her you agree.”

“I don’t agree. We don’t need to talk. We need to go back to not talking.”

Lindsey shot her a withering look. “If you’re done lying to yourself, text her back that you’re in.”

Emily rolled her eyes. Her fingers hovered over the keys as anxiety rolled in her gut. “Whatever,” she muttered, and it felt like a decision. 

**_[Sass Son-shine_** **_10:10 a.m.]_**_ Yeah ok. Time and place?_

Emily shoved her phone into her pocket and ignored it when it chimed again a few minutes later. Lindsey looked at her, but she shook her head. 

“I’m being polite,” she said. 

Lindsey rolled her eyes, but let it slide. 

Emily tried not to think about Kelley. She tried not to think about texting her or talking to her or the potential of seeing her again, sober this time. She tried not to think about the text message from her waiting to be read. 

She failed miserably. 

.

Kelley hadn’t thought about meeting in person to talk. In person was dangerous. In person came with live reaction times and not-so-thought-out responses. In person she couldn’t mask her expression so easily. In person there was no  _ distance _ . 

Kelley needed the distance. 

She needed it to stay sane. 

** _[Badass Babe 10:12 a.m.]_ ** _ Wednesday lunch? 12:30ish? Viva la Vegan? _

She checked the message history again. She saw Sonny’s confirmation. She checked the time at the top of the screen. 12:41. Technically, she guessed, that was in the realm of 12:30ish. 

It was her fault for getting there early. She had finished her run, done an extra few laps around the block to kill time, and then headed in to claim a table. 

So of course Sonny was on the late side. Or maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe she’d decided not to come after all. Maybe she’d decided she didn’t actually want any more contact with Kelley. 

Kelley fidgeted with her glass of water, watching beads of water drip down the sides where she touched the sweat on the glass. She drew patterns around it. They changed each pass of her finger. 

She checked her phone again. 12:47 p.m. and not even a text. 

This was stupid. It was a stupid idea. It was stupid to think that they could maybe forge something again, that maybe they could actually be friends after everything that had happened. (She didn’t want to think about more.)

They had been friends, then they’d dated and screwed up both their friendship and their relationship. Now they were over. They were in the past. That was exactly where Kelley should have left them. 

Kelley took a few large gulps of her water and set it down on the table a little too hard, causing a guy on his computer at the next table to jump and shoot a glare her way. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled, not feeling remotely sorry. 

She was about to stand up and leave when Sonny breezed past her and sunk into the empty seat. “Sorry! Sorry I’m late! I was up late talking to Lindsey last night and then I overslept and then traffic and finding a parking spot! I’m sorry! I should have texted, but driving, and-”

“Breathe,” Kelley cut in, feeling her annoyance dissipate as she caught the flush on Sonny’s cheeks and the way she was worrying the sleeves of her hoodie with her fingers. 

Sonny did as advised, sucking in a deep breath and letting it slowly if a little shakily. “Sorry,” she mumbled again, looking down at the table. 

“It’s fine. You’re here. You look-” Kelley cut herself short. It didn’t matter how Sonny looked. It didn’t matter that she looked cute in her UVA hoodie with her hair a little messy and her cheeks all flushed, her expression shy. 

Sonny looked at her expectantly. 

“You look like you ran here from the car,” she finished lamely. 

Sonny nodded. “Yeah, well, late, so…”

“Right.’

They sat there for an awkward moment, neither of them saying anything. 

“You look nice,” Sonny offered. 

Dammit. Why did she have to go and say something like that? Why did something like such a generic compliment set her heart racing? 

“I look like I just finished a run. ‘Cause I did,” Kelley countered. 

Sonny shrugged. “Still nice,” she mumbled, the flush on her cheeks growing a shade darker. “Did you order yet?” 

Kelley shook her head. “Waiting on you.” 

“You didn’t have to,” Sonny replied. 

Kelley shrugged.

The waitress interrupted before anymore awkwardness could settle between them, and took Sonny’s drink order. 

It didn’t take long, but it gave Kelley a second to collect herself, to breathe in deeply and try to calm her nerves. 

It was just lunch. It wasn’t a big deal. 

“So...” Sonny began when the waitress left with a promise to return in a moment. 

“Do you know what you want?” Kelley asked, cutting off whatever thought Sonny might have been about to voice and burying her face in the menu. 

Sonny shook her head and picked up her own menu. 

Kelley noticed the little glances Sonny kept shooting her over the top of it. She wasn’t oblivious. She pretended to be, though. She pretended to read through the menu for the fourth time, and then the waitress mercifully was back with Sonny’s water and asking if they’re ready to order. 

Sonny nodded and Kelley went ahead and placed her order.

When the waitress left again with the menus, Kelley realized she was out of distractions. She knew it was her idea to talk, but now that the opportunity was here, all words were abandoning her. How was she supposed to start a conversation about how maybe they should try this whole interacting from time to time thing? What if Sonny misconstrued her intentions? What if Sonny wasn’t interested in just being friends? What if she wasn’t interested in trying to be friends at all? What if they just couldn’t be friends post-break up? That happened to people all the time. 

Kelley’s palms felt sweaty and her chest felt tight, and her mind was spiralling down a whirlpool of doubt. 

“I’m thinking about getting a puppy,” Sonny said. 

It snapped Kelley out of her thoughts. “What?”

“A puppy. There’s this adorable little rescue, and, well, I love dogs. My place in Portland is pet friendly and he can stay at my parents’ when we come here, or Bailey would probably watch him for me if it was just a quick trip.”

“Oh.” This wasn’t how she’d envisioned this conversation going. 

“He’s really cute.” 

Sonny pulled out her phone and held it out, showing an adorable, little, white and grey and brown fluff ball. Kelley instantly wanted to hold him and squish his little face and scritch his little ears and give him all the cuddles. 

“Awwww,” she couldn’t stop herself from saying. “He’s the cutest!” 

Sonny grinned. “Right?” 

Kelley nodded as Sonny put her phone away again, and then the awkward silence descended on them again. Kelley sipped at her water, sucking an ice cube into her mouth and letting it melt on her tongue just for something to do that wasn’t blurting out something stupid. 

“What’s his name?” she finally asked. 

“Hmm?” Sonny asked, eyes flicking up from the spot on the table they’d been fixed on for the better part of three awkward minutes. 

“The puppy. What’s his name?”

“Oh. Bagel,” Sonny replied. 

“How’d you find him? Like, were you looking for a pet, or…?”

Sonny shrugged. “Not really, but I’ve been a bit lonely since-” Sonny cut herself off and her eyes went wide as if she realized exactly what she’d been going to say. 

Kelley felt something twist uncomfortably in her gut and she swallowed hard to push the feeling away. She didn’t need Sonny to finish the sentence. It didn’t mean anything, though. Just like it didn’t mean anything that her place in Salt Lake and her apartment here felt glaringly empty now that Sonny wasn’t over all the time. 

She could see the blush creeping back up Sonny’s cheeks. 

“Well, pets are good company,” she offered. 

Sonny nodded gratefully. “Yeah.”

“So Lindsey is in town?” Kelley transitioned. 

“Yep. She’s here another five days.”

“We could have put this off until she left,” Kelley pointed out. 

Sonny shrugged. “She said she didn’t mind. Her and Emma are off getting mani pedis today anyway.”

“Ah the joys of off-season. You can get a manicure and possibly not mess it up the very next day,” Kelley joked. 

Sonny smiled. It was a soft smile. It almost reached her eyes. “Not with the way Mal has been dragging me to the gym every other day.”

“True. We don’t really get a proper vacation ever, do we?”

“Nope. Even when we’re injured, we’re still doing limited workouts to stay strong.”

Kelley nodded. 

“Speaking of...how’s your ankle?”

Kelley shrugged. “Still attached. Taking that as a good thing. I’m allowed to lace up now, but nothing that could result in an impact yet and still on the no heels train.”

“That sucks.”

Kelley shrugged again. “It is what it is. At least I can surf. Thinking of going and kidnapping Tobin for some surf time the week before Christmas.”

“She’d probably like that,” Sonny laughed. “Christen might have other ideas, though.”

“Christen just needs to get her ass on a surfboard and then she wouldn’t care.”

It almost felt easy. It almost felt normal. It was almost enough to forget the awkwardness that hung in the air between them, creating tension that was hard to break but easy to ignore. 

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Sonny replied. 

“I know. I’ve been trying for years.”

“If even Tobin hasn’t managed it yet, I’m pretty sure you’re out of luck.” 

Kelley nodded. “Probably.”

The silence returned, but was interrupted by the arrival of their food. 

Chewing gave them a welcome excuse to let the conversation lull. 

The food was good and it made Kelley think of other days when she would have offered Sonny a bite without thinking about it. She pushed the thoughts away and kept her eyes studiously on her own plate. She told herself she didn’t notice when Sonny moaned in pleasure as she bit into her food. She told herself she couldn’t easily imagine the blush creeping up her cheeks. 

(She told herself that she couldn’t remember eliciting very similar moans from Sonny under very different circumstances.)

When the food was gone, the awkwardness descended upon them again. They had had lunch and they still hadn’t really talked about anything. Nothing important. Nothing that they probably needed to talk about if they were ever going to be able to see each other without-

Well, without  _ this _ happening. 

Kelley cleared her throat, but no words followed. 

“That was good,” Sonny murmured. 

“Yeah. Really good. I should eat here more often,” Kelley replied. 

“Yeah,” Sonny agreed. “It’s busy.”

“Always a sign of a good lunch spot,” Kelley commented. 

“Are you ladies all set?” the waitress asked. 

Kelley nodded. “Check please.”

“Checks,” Sony corrected. 

Kelley shook her head. “No, I invited you. I’ve got it.”

“No, really, we should just split it.”

The waitress was looking between them, her expression puzzled, and Kelley relented. “Two checks, split down the middle, please.”

The waitress nodded and went away, but Sonny apparently wasn’t done arguing. “Mine cost more than yours.”

“I think I can afford a few extra dollars,” Kelley pointed out. 

“But you don’t have to pay for me. I-”

“Sonny,” Kelley cut her off. More words were at the tip of her tongue, but they didn’t feel like the right ones. “It’s fine,” she said instead. 

“I was surprised you texted,” Sonny admitted after a few long moments of silence. 

“Me too,” Kelley replied, a little too honestly. 

“I really am sorry about the other night,” Sonny offered. 

Kelley shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s- We should maybe try- I mean when I’m healthy again we’ll see each other more and it would be good-” Kelley cleared her throat and tried again. “Maybe we should try the whole friends thing.”

“The typical ‘let’s stay friends’ break up song and dance?” Sonny asked. 

“Well we tried the whole ‘try to forget the other one exists’ thing, and that ended with you proclaiming you missed me while drunk at two in the morning, so…”

Sonny’s eyes went wide and her cheeks flushed a dark red. “You said I didn’t say anything stupid!”

Kelley swallowed hard. She’d forgotten that she hadn’t told her that. Not that it was her responsibility to hide it from her. For all she knew Sonny remembered saying it. “I didn’t-”

“Here are your checks ladies,” the waitress interrupted. 

Kelley pulled out her card quickly and handed it back to her without bothering to check the total. Sonny followed her lead and did the same. 

“Okay, I’ll have these right back for you to sign in just a second.”

Sonny stared sheepishly at her hands on the table, thumbs clicking their nails together in a nervous kind of way. “I was really drunk.”

“I remember,” Kelley said. 

“If I said that-”

“You did,” Kelley assured her. 

“Okay, but I mean, I wasn’t really- It just- I had like six shots. I know, I know better, but I felt like letting loose and-”

Sonny fell silent. 

“I get it. You didn’t mean it.”

Sonny opened her mouth then closed it again, like she’d thought better of whatever she’d been going to say.

Kelley told herself that she wasn’t disappointed that Sonny hadn’t tried to contradict her. “Maybe friends is aiming too high, but maybe we can at least be acquaintances who can stand to be in each other’s company.”

“Yeah. That would probably be a good thing,” Sonny agreed. 

The waitress chose that moment to return with their credit cards, so they busied themselves with signing receipts. Kelley gathered up her stuff and stood, waiting for Sonny to stand too before heading out of the restaurant. The air was cool as they stepped outside and Kelley tugged on the beanie she’d brought along. 

Sonny opened her mouth to say something, but didn’t. 

Kelley wished that she’d stop doing that. 

“This was...um…”

“Awkward,” Sonny supplied with a shy smile. 

“Yeah. Really, very,” Kelley agreed with a smile of her own. 

“Maybe we should try again sometime. Maybe before you head out to kidnap Tobin?”

“Those are still just potential plans. Not set yet.”

“Okay, but…”

“Yeah. Again would be...nice.”

“Okay. Cool.”

“Cool,” Kelley echoed. “So, I’ll text you, then, I guess.”

“Yeah. Sounds...good. Sounds good. I’ll see you around, Kel.”

Again the nickname. It struck a chord in her chest, twanging on an ache she was usually so good at ignoring. “See you, Em,” she replied, wondering if her use of that nickname had anywhere near the same effect on Sonny. 

If it did, she didn’t show it. 

She waved awkwardly and jogged off, forcing herself not to look back to see if Sonny was watching her go. 

When she was a few blocks away she paused to catch her breath and leaned heavily against a building. “Well, that was pointless,” she muttered to herself. 

She shook her head and started jogging towards home. 

.

“So you talked about nothing,” Lindsey concluded. 

“Not...nothing,” Emily sighed. “Just not much.”

“Right, silly me, you made empty promises to be acquaintances who can stand each other,” Lindsey replied, rolling her eyes. “What happened to all the things we talked about you saying last night?” 

Emily shrugged. “It didn’t feel like the right time.”

“She didn’t say anything?”

Emily felt a blush crawl up her cheeks. “She said I said I missed her.”

Lindsey gave her a look that said that she wasn’t surprised. “And what was her feeling on that?”

Emily shrugged again. “She didn’t say.”

“You didn’t ask?” Lindsey demanded. 

“I was to busy coming up with reasons why I didn’t mean it when I was drunk,” Emily replied defensively. 

“But you did mean it. You get overly honest when you’re drunk. Kelley knows that.”

Emily froze. Of course Kelley knew that. Of course she did because Kelley knew her. She smacked her forehead. Kelley knew better and she’d let her lie anyway which meant that she wanted the lie to be true. She didn’t want Emily to miss her. She wanted them to stay distant. 

She was an idiot. 

“Yeah, well…” Emily shook her head. She didn’t have a follow up. “Fuck.”

Lindsey patted her sympathetically on the arm. “How about next time you try, I dunno, actually talking about things?”

“I don’t think there’s going to be a next time,” Emily replied. 

“What? Why?”

“Because I don’t think she really wants to see me that much.”

Lindsey looked at her hard for a moment. “Sonny, I say this with all the love: you’re an idiot.”

Emily rolled her eyes. Lindsey hadn’t been there. Lindsey hadn’t seen the awkward pauses, the way Kelley had fidgeted in her seat like she’d wished she were somewhere else, the way she hadn’t really tried to say anything that mattered. “I guess we’ll see.”

.

** _[Badass Babe 4:26 p.m.]_ ** _ Do you think Bagel will have an identity crisis? _

** _[Saucy Son-shine 4:31 p.m.]_ ** _ What? _

** _[Badass Babe 4:32 p.m.]_ ** _ What if he thinks he’s a bagel instead of a dog? What if he spends all his time trying to get into the fridge to access the cream cheese?  _

Kelley grinned, imagining Sonny’s laughter at her text. 

** _[Saucy Son-shine 4:33 p.m.]_ ** _ I’ll try not to eat him. _

** _[Badass Babe 4:35 p.m.]_ ** _ Good. That would be a tragic news story. I can just picture the headline “Promising USWNT Star Eats Bagel” _

** _[Saucy Son-shine 4:36 p.m.]_ ** _ I’m hardly a star.  _

Kelley bit back the urge to argue. 

** _[Badass Babe 4:38 p.m.] _ ** _ Just saying, maybe you should rename him.  _

** _[Saucy Son-shine 4:41 p.m.] _ ** _ I don’t want to confuse him. He already knows his name. _

** _[Badass Babe 4:43 p.m.]_ ** _ People rename their pets all the time. _

** _[Saucy Son-shine 4:44 p.m.]_ ** _ I like the name Bagel.  _

“Okaaay,” Kelley murmured. She’d only started this conversation because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. It had been four days of no contact, and she’d felt each of them. It had seemed like too long. She decided not to analyze why that might be and bite the bullet and text her. Now, though, she was out of conversation, but not ready to stop texting. 

Her fingers hovered over the keys as she wracked her brain for something else to write. 

** _[Badass Babe 4:52 p.m.]_ ** _ Coffee tomorrow? 10ish? The place by me? _

She swallowed hard and put her phone away as if she wasn’t waiting anxiously for a response. Why had she asked that? Lunch had been bearable at best. 

She told herself that she wasn’t grinning like an idiot when she read: 

** _[Saucy Son-shine 5:00 p.m.]_ ** _ See you there. _

.

“How’s Bagel?” Kelley asked. 

It wasn’t the greeting that Emily was expecting, but it was asked with a grin that made her heart beat a little faster, so she took it. “Cute as anything. I stopped by again yesterday with Lindsey. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna take him.” 

Kelley frowned. “Oh. Right. Lindsey. Did you want to do this another time? Or did she want to join us?”

Emily shook her head. “No. She’s fine. She’s been taking advantage of visiting me by sleeping in as late as possible.” Emily laughed. “Yesterday that meant that I had drawn some lovely age lines on half her face around ten that she didn’t find out about until she stumbled out of the room for lunch at almost noon. It was priceless.”

Kelley giggled. “Please tell me you took pictures.”

“Obviously,” Emily replied, pulling out her phone and flipping through them so that Kelley could see. 

Kelley leaned in close to get a better view, her shoulder brushing against Emily, her hair falling towards her. 

She’d changed her shampoo, Emily realized. This one smelled like orchids. She liked it. It was different, though, and that knowledge curled uncomfortably in her gut. 

Kelley let out a loud laugh at the picture of a very confused, slightly groggy Lindsey frowning at the camera. She laughed harder at the next picture of Lindsey realizing what had happened. 

“She threatened to kill me after that one, so I stopped taking pictures so I could run better,” Emily relayed with a grin. 

“Permanent marker?”

“No. I think she really WOULD have killed me then.”

Kelley leaned back and laughed, but Emily noticed that there wasn’t as much space between them now as there had been a moment before when Kelley had first sat down. 

It was a cozy little coffee spot that they’d visited before, small couches and perfectly mismatched comfy chairs forming perfect nooks for each group, with barstools lining the high counters at the windows. Emily had chosen a love seat when she’d arrived, expecting Kelley to take the empty chair at an angle to it. She hadn’t. 

Emily told herself that wasn’t worth reading into. 

“So are you guys having a nice visit?” Kelley asked over the top of the steaming cup of coffee she’d gotten before she sat down. 

“Yeah. Best friend time, you know?”

Kelley nodded. 

“You still planning that trip to kidnap Tobin?”

“Nah, Chris said Tobs will be in Jersey that week. Something about her aunt or cousins or something. I figured I should probably let her visit her family,” Kelley said, acting like she was put out, but Emily knew better. 

She grinned. “Bummer. Well maybe you and I can catch some waves around here.” The words were out before she’d thought them through and she instantly wished she could take them back. “I mean, you know, probably not soon or anything, and we could invite other people, like a group surf trip or something just to South Carolina, just for some waves, not like...the...company.” Emily closed her eyes and swallowed hard, feeling her cheeks flush with heat and knowing that she was blushing ridiculously. She had definitely made it worse. 

“Obviously not for the company,” Kelley said, and Emily could hear the teasing tone in her voice. 

She risked opening her eyes and saw Kelley smirking at her. 

Why was that so fucking sexy?

No, that was not a thought she could have about her acquaintance she could now stand to be around. That wasn’t even a thought she  _ should _ have about Kelley her maybe kinda friend. 

She knew her cheeks were turning an even darker shade of red and mentally cursed her pale skin for making her blush so obvious. “Shut up. You know what I mean.”

“Yep. I’m irresistible and you just have to spend more time with me,” Kelley teased. 

Emily shook her head, but she knew her face was giving her away. Kelley was too close to the mark. That wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay for her to actually want this time with Kelley so much. They were exes for a reason. They didn’t work. Maybe they worked as friends once upon a time, but they’d blown that. 

Kelley seemed to realize that she might have overstepped because Emily noticed her eyes grow more focussed, the crinkles at the sides from her amusement smoothing out, and she shifted, almost imperceptibly, further away again. 

“I’m just kidding,” Kelley murmured. “You were just being nice. I know.”

“No! I mean, yes, but, we really  _ can _ go surfing sometime. If you want. It’s...I mean I like to. It’s fun. I’m not as good as you, but...It’s something we both enjoy, so if we did it together, it could just be...as...acquaintances.”

“Who can stand to be in the same place,” Kelley finished. 

“Yeah.”

Kelley sipped at her coffee and Emily realized that hers was getting cold and followed suit. “Or maybe as friends,” Kelley said after a long few minutes. Her voice was soft, and Emily almost didn’t hear it over the funky music playing in the coffee shop. 

It took her a second for her brain to process the words, and then her heart skipped a beat. “Yeah. That would...yeah.”

She glanced at Kelley, but Kelley was studying her coffee mug like it was incredibly fascinating. 

“I’d like that,” Emily offered. 

Kelley’s eyes met hers and, for a split second, Emily thought that maybe-

No.

It wasn’t worth even speculating about. 

Friends. 

That was more than they’d had a few weeks ago. 

That was plenty.

She’d take it. 

.

“So you went from ‘we want nothing to do with each other’ to ‘let’s take a surf trip to South Carolina together’?” Tobin demanded, her face squeezed in next to Christen’s on the Facetime call. 

“It wasn’t...Not really. Maybe. Kind of. As friends. We’re trying to be friends. I think.” Kelley frowned. She still wasn’t sure about what exactly had happened at the coffee shop the other day. Sonny had been all adorably befuddled and Kelley had found herself fighting the urge to lean in, to comfort her, to-

Kelley shook her head. 

“Friends, huh?” Tobin asked with a knowing smirk. 

Kelley rolled her eyes. “Yes. Friends. That thing that me and Christen are.” She stuck out her tongue at Tobin for good measure. 

“Christen and I,” Christen corrected. 

“You know what? You’re both off my Christmas card list this year,” Kelley sulked. 

“You don’t send Christmas cards,” Tobin pointed out. 

“Why do I talk to either of you?”

“Because we love you and we’ve known you forever,” Christen replied without missing a beat, her smile kind. 

“Yeah, well, this whole surf trip as friends thing wouldn’t even be an issue if I could’ve stolen Tobin for a surf trip,” Kelley grumbled. 

“Dude, family time. You know we get precious little of it,” Tobin commented. 

Kelley sighed. She did know. She nodded. “So what do I do about Sonny?”

“Is there a reason you keep asking us instead of, say, Allie or Alex?” Christen asked. 

“What, you love me enough to talk to me but don’t like me enough to give me advice?” Kelley retorted. 

Christen rolled her eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant. It’s just...Sonny is our friend too, where as Alex and Allie-”

“Took your side in the divorce,” Tobin supplied when Christen hesitated. “We’re Switzerland. You’re asking Switzerland for advice.”

“Maybe I need a more neutral input,” Kelley replied. “I know what Alex and Allie will say. They’ll tell me I’m being stupid.”

“Well, you are. Usually. That’s just a given,” Tobin teased with a grin. 

Kelley flipped her off and stuck out her tongue.

Christen sighed. “Children,” she scolded, but Kelley wasn’t fooled. She saw the smile playing at the corners of her mouth. 

“Alex will tell me that we’re going to go right down the same path we went down before and Allie will ask me what’s changed and I’ll have to say, ‘nothing’, and, well, there we are.”

Christen looked at her for a moment, then exchanged a glance with Tobin, then looked back. “But things have changed,” she said. 

Kelley looked skeptical. “Like what?”

“Both of you,” Tobin replied. “You’ve both changed. You both went through the break up. You both now know what it’s like to miss each other.” 

“I don’t miss-”

“Kel,” Christen cut her off with a pointed look. 

“Okay, fine, whatever, maybe that’s a valid point.”

“You’ve both dealt with the loss of each other,” Christen said.

“Not true. Kelley doesn’t deal. She represses,” Tobin argued. 

It was Christen’s turn to roll her eyes. 

Kelley wanted to argue. She did. She didn’t really have an argument, though. Not one that was valid anyway. 

“Our point is, Kelley, that things are different. Maybe trying to be friends again will be good for you,” Christen continued. 

Kelley considered this. Christen was smart. Tobin was, too, but in a more understated way. They seemed to be in agreement about this. 

“Have you talked to Sonny about this?” she asked, hating the way her voice sounded small as she asked. 

Tobin and Christen exchanged another look. “Kel…” Christen said in a soothing voice. 

“Right. You won’t tell me one way or the other.”

“We want what’s best for both of you, okay?” Christen asked. “Can you trust that?”

Kelley nodded. “Yeah. I do. I just...Yeah. I should go.”

Christen offered a sympathetic smile and a wave. Tobin threw up a shaka hand sign. 

“Bye, Kel!” they said at the same time. 

“Bye,” Kelley replied, signing off the call. 

She leaned back on her couch and sighed. What did she want with Sonny? Was friends enough? Could they really get back to being the kind of friend they’d been before? Were things really so different now that they wouldn’t just end up the same? Had they ever really been just friends, or had repressed feelings colored their entire relationship? 

There were too many fucking questions, Kelley decided. What she needed was a drink. 

.

** _[Badass Babe 1:35 a.m.] _ ** _ I miussa your top _

Emily read the text message with bleary eyes. She blinked hard and read it again. She sat up and tried it again. 

Nope. It still made no sense. 

** _[Saucy Son-shine 1:38 a.m.]_ ** _ What?? _

** _[Badass Babe 1:41 a.m.]_ ** _ I mnisd you top _

Emily studied the arrangement of letters. She looked at what was the same and what was different from the first message. She felt a lump form in her throat at what she thought Kelley might be trying to say. 

**_[Badass Babe 1:42 a.m.]_** _top_

** _[Badass Babe 1:42 a.m.] _ ** _ top _

** _[Badass Babe 1:42 a.m.]_ ** _ GODSDANNIT! _

** _[Badass Babe 1:43 a.m.]_ ** _ too _

** _[Saucy Son-shine 1:44 a.m.] _ ** _ Are you drunk? _

She knew the answer, but when Kelley replied with the beer mug emoji it just confirmed it. 

** _[Saucy Son-shine 1:48 a.m.] _ ** _ Are you home? _

**_[Badass Babe 1:49 a.m.]_** _sip_

** _[Badass Babe 1:49 a.m.] _ ** _ SI _

** _[Saucy Son-shine 1:50 a.m.] _ ** _ Are you alone? _

** _[Baddass Babe 1:52 a.m.] _ ** _ Nope. Git beer. _

Emily considered her options quickly. It was almost 2 in the morning. Lindsey had left on an early flight the day before. She was tired. 

And Kelley was drunk. Kelley was drunk and texting her. Kelley was drunk and possibly texting her that she missed her. 

** _[Saucy Son-shine 1:57 a.m.] _ ** _ I’m coming over. _

.

“You-” Kelley stabbed a finger in Sonny’s general direction, but there seemed to be more than one of her and she wouldn’t stay still. She blinked hard and Sonny solidified into one person. “You are-”

She wanted to say “here.” She wanted to say, “Why are you here?” 

“You are pretty.” 

Wait, no that wasn’t it. That wasn’t what she wanted to say. 

Sonny laughed. “And YOU are WASTED,” she replied. 

Kelley shook her head. Why did it feel so incredibly heavy? “Tipsy,” she argued. 

“Trashed,” Sonny countered. She went to Kelley’s kitchen and reappeared with a glass of water. 

Kelley wanted to protest, but the glass of water was being pushed into her hands and it seemed like maybe a good idea. She drank it, and Sonny took the glass then went and refilled it. 

“Here,” she said gently when she returned again. 

Kelley closed one eye and looked at Sonny. She opened it and closed the other eye and looked at her. She opened both eyes and squinted at Sonny. “You’re here.”

Sonny looked amused as she nodded. “I am. Here, drink.”

She pressed the glass of water into Kelley’s hands and Kelley took a sip, but still looked at Sonny. “Why are you here?”

“Because you need someone to get you water,” Sonny replied. 

That was probably. True. Kelley could get on board with that. But wait -

“That’s not your job,” she pointed out. 

“It wasn’t your job to pick me up from the bar the other week either,” Sonny countered. “Yet here we are.”

“You are very sober,” Kelley accused. 

“Yes,” Sonny agreed. 

“You need beer,” Kelley said decisively and tried to stand, but she splashed water on her shirt in the process. 

Sonny put a steadying hand on the glass, half covering Kelley’s hand with her own as she did so. Her touch was warm and comforting. “I think one of us being drunk at a time is good enough,” she argued. 

Kelley pouted out her lip. “No fun.”

“Yeah, that’s what they always tell me,” Sonny replied. 

That wasn’t true. Sonny was lots of fun. Sonny was a hype woman. Sonny was the life of the party. 

“No they don’t. You’re very fun.”

“And you are still very drunk. Drink the water,” Sonny advised. 

Kelley frowned but did as she was instructed. Sonny took the empty glass from her and headed back to the kitchen. 

“Have to pee!” Kelley called after her. She stumbled to her feet and headed to the bathroom, pausing to lean against the wall as the floor swam beneath her. Possibly starting with the bourbon in her liquor cabinet hadn’t been her best idea. 

“You need help?” Sonny asked, coming back into the living room. 

“I can pee by myself!” Kelley replied. 

“So glad. What a big girl. When did you lose the training pants?”

“Heeeey!” Kelley knew she was being teased. She stuck out her tongue and heard Sonny giggle. “Be right back,” she declared, making it the rest of the way to her bathroom in one go. 

She peed and washed her hands and then splashed some cold water on her face. She was maybe a little too drunk to be facing Sonny right now. 

She splashed her face again and took some deep breaths. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and did her best to look sober. She didn’t think she quite succeeded. 

She sighed and headed back to the living room. 

“Hi,” she greeted Sonny. 

“Feel better?” 

Kelley nodded. She took her seat on the couch next to Sonny and accepted her third glass of water without complaint. 

“So can I ask why you’re drinking alone in your apartment?” Sonny asked. 

Kelley frowned. “Cause questions,” she mumbled. 

She took long slow sips of her water. 

“What kind of questions?” Sonny asked. 

This was dangerous. Kelley knew this was dangerous. She needed to answer carefully. 

“You questions.”

That was maybe not so careful. 

Sonny looked surprised. “What kind of me questions?”

“The question-y kind. Ask Tobito and Turtle.”

“Tobin and Chris?”

Kelley nodded. She stuck her neck out imitating a turtle sticking its head out of its shell and laughed. 

Sonny looked amused, but she didn’t laugh. Maybe Kelley hadn’t done it right. 

“You’ve been talking to Tobin and Chris about me?”

“They’re Switzerland,” Kelley explained. 

“They’re in Switzerland?” Sonny looked more confused than ever. 

“No, no, no,” Kelley clarified, shaking her head. “They ARE Switzerland.”

Sonny still looked confused. 

“They don’t take sides. They are on YOUR side and they are on MY side and they are on THEIR side. They’re on all sides. They’re a dodecahedron or something.”

“Pretty sure three sides just makes a triangle,” Sonny pointed out. 

Kelley waved the comment away. “Switzerland thinks that things are different now.”

Sonny looked lost again and Kelley considered that she might not be doing a very good job of explaining. 

“Us,” Kelley attempted to clarify. “We’re different. Things here are different. We’re not us. Well, we are us. Obviously. Hi, I’m Kelley. You are Sonny. Emily. Emily Sonnett. That’s you.”

“Yes. That’s me. And you are Kelley O’Hara.”

“Yep!” Kelley polished her nails on her shirt proudly. “Two time World Champ That’s me!”

Sonny laughed. “Okay, so we’re us, but we’re different?” 

Kelley nodded. “Different us. Friends us. I missed friends. The us not the show. I miss the show too. Jennifer Anniston is…” Kelley made the “okay” hand gesture. 

Sonny laughed again. It was a good sound. Kelley liked that sound. She wanted to make it happen again. 

“Could’ve been gayer.”

“The show or us?” Sonny asked, a smile playing at her lips. It was a very pretty smile. 

It was a very kissable smile. 

“The show,” Kelley replied. “We were the perfect amount of gay.”

Kelley was rewarded with another laugh from Sonny. It really was one of the best sounds. 

“Drink you water,” Sonny said before Kelley could comment on it. 

Kelley did as instructed, and then she had to pee again. 

She excused herself and made it to the bathroom without having to stop to support herself with the wall. She was sobering. Slightly. 

That was probably good. 

When she emerged this time, Sonny was leaning against the wall across from her holding another full glass of water. “You should get to bed.”

The drunk part of Kelley wanted to argue that she was busy making Sonny laugh. The sobering part of Kelley recognized a good idea when it heard one. “Okay.”

She followed Sonny to her room, took off her sweatshirt, and crawled into bed. She patted the mattress beside her. 

“You sleep too.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Sonny countered quickly. 

“Didn’t make it. Bed big. You sleep,” Kellep patted the empty space beside her again. 

“I’ll stay for a little bit,” Sonny relented, climbing into bed beside her. 

Kelley instantly scooted over, wrapping herself around Sonny’s warmth. She was so comforting and inviting. “Missed you,” Kelley sighed as she let her eyes drift shut. 

She felt a hand come up to stroke her hair. It was nice. She hummed contentedly. 

“Do you think we’re different enough?” she asked through a yawn. 

“Different enough for what?” Sonny’s voice was calm and starting to sound far away. 

“For us,” Kelley replied. 

She didn’t stay awake long enough to get her answer. 

.

Emily knew she should have left. She should have probably gone all the way home once she’d gotten Kelley into bed. At the very least, she should have gone to the couch. She definitely shouldn’t have slept in bed with Kelley. 

She had, though, and now she was awake and painfully aware of the way that Kelley’s arm was draped over her stomach and Kelley’s leg was hooked around her own. Her skin was burning at the touch, every cell feeling as if it had been specifically made just to be sensitive to Kelley’s touch. 

Kelley shifted slightly, and her hand brushed lower, to the space at Emily’s hip where her shirt had pulled up as they slept. Emily repressed a shiver as Kelley’s fingers ghosted against her bare skin. 

She needed to get up. She needed to get up or she was going to do something stupid. Stupider than coming over here last night. Stupider than indulging in conversation with a very drunk Kelley. Stupider than sleeping in bed with Kelley again. 

She carefully lifted Kelley’s arm, hoping not to wake her, and eased herself out of the bed, almost tripping and falling as she waited to pull the leg that was half under Kelley out last. Kelley stirred slightly and rolled over, but Sonny heard a soft snore a moment later and knew that she’d successfully extracted herself. 

She made her way quietly to the living room and eyed the front door. She should go. She should head home and forget last night happened. Kelley probably wouldn’t even remember it, so it wasn’t like she’d miss her. 

Except that when she’d woken up from her night of drinking, hungover and a little embarrassed, there had been toast and pain killers waiting for her. 

She headed to the kitchen. 

Okay, maybe it meant something, she conceded as she hunted for the coffee filters, that she didn’t want to go home. It meant they could be friends again. 

Probably.

Hopefully. 

That was it, though. That was all it meant. 

It didn’t matter that Kelley missed her. They’d tried and they’d failed. They weren’t supposed to be together romantically. 

Emily found the coffee where it always was and set about putting it on to brew. 

Kelley’s final question from the night before lingered in her head. 

Were they different enough for what? For them? What did that mean? 

Emily had some ideas. She’d stayed up longer than she should have last night, listening to Kelley’s heavy breathing, taking comfort in her warmth, and thinking about the bits of information that Kelley had let spill. 

She’d been talking to Tobin and Christen about them. That meant that she had questions too. Whatever was happening in this reconnection, it wasn’t one-sided. But did it mean that Kelley wanted the same things that Emily had found herself wanting? 

Were they different enough? 

To try again? As friends? As more? 

Emily needed answers. She checked her phone. It was early there, but Christen sometimes got up early to meditate. She’d risk it. 

She put some bread in the toaster and looked up Christen’s number and called. 

“Hey, Sonny.”

“Why’s Kelley want to know if we’re different?”

“And good morning to you, too,” Christen replied pointedly. 

“Good morning, Chris. Sorry if I woke you. Now will you please tell me why Kelley texted me drunk at 1 in the morning last night and why she keeps talking about us being different?”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line, then a rustling of what sounded like sheets, and then Christen said, “Maybe you should fill me in first.”

.

The bed beside her was empty and cold when Kelley opened her eyes. Her head wasn’t too bad. She was lucky. Not getting bad hangovers was one of her superpowers. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and replayed the night before in her head. It got a little foggy towards the end, but she remembered some very important things. 

Things like Sonny had come over. Things like she’d texted her she missed her. Things like she’d insisted Sonny share her bed. 

Sonny who was definitely not in her bed now. 

Kelley blinked hard again and pushed herself up. She sat up and looked around. There was a plate of toast on her bedside table, a fresh glass of water, and some ibuprofen. She smiled to herself. It didn’t mean anything, of course, but it was nice to know that Sonny cared enough to return the favor. 

She took her time, stretching, munching slowly on the toast, picking out some clean clothes, and downing the water and the meds. She made her way to the bathroom, splashed herself with some water, ran a brush through her hair and brushed her teeth, and threw on the clean clothes before making her way to the living room. 

She expected to see Sonny sitting on the couch maybe watching some TV. She wasn’t. She made her way into the kitchen, following her nose all the way to the still hot coffee pot. No Sonny, though. 

Oh. 

She told herself that it didn’t sting. She told herself she didn’t care that Sonny had left without saying goodbye. She wasn’t owed that. It was enough that Sonny had come over the night before. They were just friends. They were barely even that. Kelley had probably pushed things too far last night in her drunken stupidity. She never should have texted her in the middle of the night. It wasn’t fair to Sonny. 

Just like it hadn’t been fair to her when Sonny had called her drunk. Had she just wanted to return the favor? Was she that petty? Or did she just want Sonny’s company? 

Kelley poured herself a tall cup of coffee. She was not awake enough for the way her brain was bombarding her with questions. She put some more bread in the toaster and surveyed her fruit supply. She opted to cut open the Honeydew melon that had been ripening on her counter, and was rewarded by her first, sweet, juicy piece of it. She filled a small bowl with more, buttered her toast, carefully balanced both in one hand, picked up her coffee, and headed back to the living room. 

It was fine that Sonny wasn’t here. If she had been, Kelley would’ve had to share the melon. She’d have had to ask Sonny what she wanted to watch. Instead Kelley was able to go right to the episode of Atypical she’d started the night before without having to worry if Sonny liked it. 

It was fine. 

Kelley bit into her toast, ignoring the growing empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. It wasn’t a big deal and she wasn’t going to get emotional about it. 

It was fine. 

She heard keys at her door and frowned. Who else had keys to her place? Well, Erin, but she wasn’t apt to come over unexpectedly. That was part of why Kelley had trusted her with keys in the first place. 

The door swung open, and Sonny entered, holding a box of donuts and a bouquet of colorful flowers. She froze when she saw Kelley and smiled sheepishly. 

“I- Uh...Hi,” she said. She held up Kelley’s keys. “Sorry, I borrowed these. I didn’t want to wake you when I came back.” She set them in the bowl on the table, balancing the box of donuts and the flowers in one hand. 

Kelley continued to stare at her, puzzled. Sonny wasn’t gone. Sonny was back. With donuts. And...flowers? She realized that she hadn’t said anything yet, and quickly mumbled, “Hi.”

Sonny took a tentative step forward. “So...how are you feeling?”

“Okay. Mild headache. Meds should kick in soon. Are you going to someone’s grave later?”

“What?” Sonny looked mildly alarmed. 

“You have flowers,” Kelley pointed out. 

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” Sonny picked them up with her free hand and held them out. “These are actually-” She cleared her throat and Kelley could make out a blush creeping up her cheeks. “These are for you. Um...I’ll just go...I’m gonna go set the box down and put these in some water. 

Kelley set her bowl and her plate down on the coffee table next to her mug of coffee, and followed Sonny into her kitchen. 

“They’re for me?” she echoed. “You got me flowers?”

“Um, well, they...I thought maybe-” Sonny took a deep breath and turned to face her, leaving the bouquet on the counter behind her. “Yes. I got you flowers.”

“Oh.” Kelley furrowed her brows trying to figure out what might have prompted the purchase. 

“I talked to Chris this morning,” Sonny said, biting her lip in that way she always did when she was nervous. “She said...I think that we are.”

“What?” Kelley asked, still trying to catch up. Maybe she should have finished her coffee first. 

“I think we are different. You and me. This isn’t like it was before. WE aren’t like we were before. We...It’s different.”

“Oh,” Kelley repeated, but things were starting to click now. The pit that had been forming in her stomach changed from emptiness to anxiety and rose up into her chest. “So...that’s like a good thing, right?”

Sonny shrugged. “I think so. I think we...I...I mean we can be friends. Again. Which is good.”

Kelley felt a lump form in her throat and she swallowed down the hint of disappointment she felt at Sonny’s words. “Right. Friends. That’s...Yeah. That’s good,” she agreed. 

Sonny nodded and turned back around. She reached for the kitchen shears and began cutting the ends off of the stems, then she set the flowers and the shears down a little forcefully and swiveled back around. “Or not friends.”

Kelley frowned. She felt like she was getting emotional whiplash. “Not friends?” she echoed. 

“No. Not JUST friends,” Sonny clarified. 

Kelley’s heart began to race. 

“I don’t just want to be your friend, Kel. I don’t know if I know how to be just your friend because everytime I’m near you- And then even when I’m not I wish I was, and-”

Kelley didn’t overthink. She didn’t repress. She felt it and she acted on what she felt. She surged forward and kissed Sonny, catching her off guard.

It was a little awkward for a moment, and then Sonny leaned into it and their lips slotted together in a way that was familiar and different all at once. 

“Do you, maybe, want to try going out with me sometime?” Kelley breathed against Sonny’s lips, leaning her forehead against Sonny’s her fingers cupping Sonny’s face. 

Sonny smiled. It was a real smile. The type the crinkled her eyes in the corner and showed just the barest hint of teeth. It was Kelley’s favorite kind of smile. “Yeah. I think that would be good.”

Kelley kissed her again, gently, just for a second, then pulled away, her cheeks flushed with an uncharacteristic blush. She grinned. “Okay then.”

“Okay,” Sonny echoed. She was still smiling when she turned away and resumed taking care of the flowers. 

“So what are the donuts for?”

“Breakfast,” Sonny replied simply. 

“God, I missed you.”

.

If Emily had been sober, she would probably have still thought this was a great idea. Emily wasn’t sober, though. She was very not sober. Kelley wasn’t sober either. 

Drinking together was much nicer than drinking alone. 

Drinking with their friends was even better. 

“Sonny, no!” Mal complained. 

“Oh, we’re doing it,” Kelley replied. “Come on, babe.”

Kelley’s arm was warm around her waist. 

“It’s so overplayed,” Lindsey whined. “Besides it’s for kids.”

Sonny picked up the microphone and heard the introductory chords. 

“You guys are idiots,” Tobin commented with a laugh. 

“You love us,” Kelley retorted. 

Sonny waited for their intro and together they sang the opening lines. “The snow glows white on the mountain tonight…”


End file.
